Lessons
by dysprositos
Summary: And Banner was a fascinating specimen, so boldly masquerading as a man, even as he was filled with something murderous, something terrible.  Loki wanted to see how it was done. Or, Loki reflects on what it means to be a monster.


Warnings: none, I guess?

Thanks to my amazing beta, irite, as always.

This is based on an idea I've been musing on for awhile now. I've really been feeling the Loki lately...

I do not own The Avengers.

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They told him about Banner, and Loki had been _fascinated_.

They told him a great number of things, of course, but most of it, Loki did not care to hear. He had agreed to do this thing for Them, and Their seemingly endless prattling about details afterwards nearly drove him to renege, to seek some new purpose (or perhaps even oblivion, if it came to that) elsewhere.

Given how it all turned out, maybe he should have.

But Banner...that was a topic on which Loki wished They had expounded. They only dusted over the bare essentials. _How_ They knew what They did, Loki did not ask. He did not care. He only wished They would share _more _of it.

Because Loki knew monsters. He _was _one, after all, so of course he knew monsters. And Banner was a fascinating specimen, so boldly masquerading as a man, even as he was filled with something murderous, something terrible. Loki wanted to see how it was done, for he had failed utterly at hiding his own monstrosity. Spectacularly, even. Banner, he thought, might be worth studying. Might be able to teach Loki something new.

But They did not see Banner in that light. They predicted that SHIELD would use Banner, that Banner would allow himself to be used, which would leave the human open to Loki's manipulation and thus allow the demigod to complete his mission. But beyond that, They had little to say about the man who could become a monster, dismissing him as a pawn on their chessboard. Useful, but ultimately negligible.

Perhaps that was why Loki had underestimated the human so badly.

'Human,' though, wasn't quite the right word for Banner, like 'Æsir' was not quite the right word for Loki. They were both something else, something _more_, perhaps, and from the very moment Loki learned of the beast entrenched within Banner's seemingly weak human body he thought he had found a kindred spirit, had found someone who knew monsters like he did.

Loki never would have believed as much, had he seen the good doctor before hearing about his 'affliction.' Banner was small, unassuming. His entire demeanor was apologetic, and his desire to just disappear practically oozed from his pores. He was...unimpressive, in a word. A disappointment. Loki wondered, momentarily, if perhaps this was not the right man, if maybe SHIELD had found someone else to attend to their task. But then Banner looked up and met Loki's eyes through the window that separated them, and Loki saw the rage burning within, the hurt, the shadow of despair. It was bright, and fierce, and so he knew. Yes, this was the monster.

And yet he was not what Loki expected. This was not a monster boldly masquerading as a man, this was a man tortured by the monster, beaten down, yet still reining it in with all his strength. Reining. It. In. Loki was disheartened. _This_ was who he was looking to for answers? This man was _weak_, not at all the titan Loki had been hoping for.

Still, when he finally saw the beast in action, it was nonetheless exhilarating. Banner's monster, Loki could see, was not like his own. Banner's monster (once Banner had set him free, had lost his control—and how tenuous that seemed!) was unconstrained, was not ashamed of what he was. He was rage, and hurt, and despair. He was no longer bound by Banner's scruples, by his humanity, by any sense of right or wrong.

It was exhilarating, yes...but Loki felt something else, too.

He hadn't been able to put a finger on it, at the time, had not been able to nail it down until hours later. First because he'd been preoccupied with the battle, then because he'd been dazed after being beaten into the ground, and finally because he'd been trying to plan an escape from the cell SHIELD was holding him in until he was to be transported back to Asgard.

No escape was possible, though; it seemed they had learned something from their mistakes. Weakened as he was from going head-to-head with Banner's alter ego, he could not have gotten far anyway. So he told himself. In lieu of escape, then, he had decided to play a different game.

"I would like to speak with Dr. Banner," he had said clearly to the recording device in the upper corner of his cell, carefully enunciating each word. "I have information about the Tesseract that he may find useful."

It had been a gamble—he didn't know what SHIELD was doing with the Tesseract, now that they had it in their possession. Banner might have been forbidden from handling the item after the 'incident' with the spear, as far as Loki knew. But his gamble had paid off, and within half an hour, the mild-mannered scientist had been standing outside his cell, looking at the demigod within expectantly.

"You said you have information for me," Banner had prompted Loki, arms crossed loosely over his chest, his posture completely defensive.

"And you are so trusting that you actually believed me." Loki had let his eyes linger over the man in front of him, taking in again his small stature, his hunched shoulders. "How endearing."

Banner had turned to leave, and Loki had realized then that he had miscalculated—Banner was not like Stark. He was not eager to engage in banter, to throw his will up against Loki's and see who came out on top. No, he was eager to escape. He knew the danger of the situation, knew how truly tenuous his control was; he would not linger and let Loki manipulate him. Not again.

So Loki had taken a more blunt approach. "Tell me about the beast."

Banner had frozen in his steps, shoulders hunched further forward than they had been even a moment before. "Why?" He seemed utterly unwilling to engage Loki, but unable to stop himself from responding.

"It is not often that I find myself so easily overcome." Honesty, it had seemed, was the best approach, the best way to keep Banner from shutting down entirely.

This had been confirmed when Banner had turned back to face Loki with a quiet, "Yeah, well, it's not often I find myself trying to stop a god from taking over the world." He had looked up, meeting Loki's eyes with a fire that startled the trickster. "You want to know about the Other Guy? I think you've already learned about all there is to know about him."

"Oh, I very much doubt that."

"Look," Banner had snapped, and Loki couldn't help the thrill of fear that coursed through him when the man's eyes flashed a bright, acid green briefly before fading back to brown. "He's not me. He's a monster. I can't control him. No one can. There's nothing else to know!"

The human had stalked back upstairs before Loki could pry more out of him, had gone back to whatever he had been doing before Loki had summoned him. Not five minutes later a veritable squadron of SHIELD agents, aided by Thor (and that was something Loki had _no _desire to think about), had come in to fit Loki with a muzzle that prevented him from making even the smallest sound.

And so ended his quest for information.

Left alone with his thoughts, they inevitably turned back to Banner, for the man/monster was easily the most interesting inhabitant of this realm. And it was not long before Loki identified the feeling that had been curling through his midsection, writhing around inside of him.

Jealousy.

Because he could never have the...freedom that Banner took for granted. Banner had said that his monster was not _him_, and that was something that Loki had seen for himself_._ Loki, though, was not so lucky. _His_ monster (for that was what he was. Jötunn, monster, it was all the same, was it not?) was woven through him, had infiltrated even the smallest corners of his being. He was not so fortunate as Banner that he could believe in any dichotomy within himself, that he could ever _create_ such a dichotomy. He _was_ the monster, he _was _monstrous, and he would never be free of it for a _moment_. Banner might have a monster inside of him, but Loki was a monster _always_.

And where there were those who could forgive Banner his awful crimes, Loki would never know such clemency. Because where Banner had his beast thrust upon him, Loki had chosen this. He had taken up the mantle of 'monster' that day he had sent the Destroyer after Thor, and he had worn it proudly since. _His_ monstrosity was a choice, not just the result of the Jötunn blood in his veins, because he should have been able to be _more _than this, more than his ancestry. He was flawed at his core, clearly, because he hadn't been able to purge the monster, had not been able to overcome what his biology had written in his cards. He should have been able to, but he hadn't, and maybe _that _weakness was the true horror within him, the true monstrosity. Not the Frost Giant lurking beneath the surface, but the horrific weakness of character that had left him unable to do more than lay prostrate before his fate.

Banner, Loki noted, did not suffer such a weakness of character. _He_ struggled against becoming that beast, refused to accept it as a part of himself. He clung to his humanity as best he could. Fate had knocked him down, but Banner refused to stay beaten. And...perhaps that was what kept Banner from _truly_ being a monster, even as that _thing _inside of him ripped its way out.

Loki had thought Banner seemed weak, but that wasn't true. He wasn't weak. He was fighting, constantly. Endlessly. Against his very nature.

And Loki had just _given in_ to his. So really, who was weak? Who was _really _a monster?

Perhaps, Loki realized with a jolt, he did not know monsters as well as he thought he did.

Banner had taught him something after all.

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Thanks for reading!

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